


Crawl

by TinyBat



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AU, Bobbi and Trip aren't in it but they were Delta babies with Ward, F/M, Prompt Fill, Strike Team Epsilon, birthday fic, vague smut from a non-smut writer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 01:04:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2794118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinyBat/pseuds/TinyBat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Given the right motivation, anyone can come back. Ward, after a stressful, tiring deployment with Strike Team Delta, finds that his composure is shattered, and he can't keep his head straight. Jemma is there to listen, because if they're honest, she hated watching him leave, and he hated watching her disappear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crawl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [weasleyspotter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weasleyspotter/gifts).



> A birthday present for my darling Sonika, queen of heart breaking angst, roommate AUs, and all around fantastic pieces.

Three days in, and Grant wasn’t sure what was harder to deal with, the silence, or the crack of gunfire, and screams splitting the air. He has a strong stomach, always did, but some things should never be heard, and the wails of the dying were keeping him awake. Being on secondment was hardly unusual for specialists, and at least the company wasn’t bad, but the place he wanted to be definitely wasn’t a Kosovo slum. 

The signal his team were awaiting blazed high in the half darkness, they each materialized from a sewer pipe, a satellite feeder tower, and a tower of rusted out shipping crates.

"Alright, boys. We’re good to go. First one onboard gets the shower." Romanoff whispered, her voice hoarse, and pained from the dust, and periodic vomiting. Someone had to have a sense of humor, why it was her this time around was anybody’s guess.

They’d seen action every six to eight hours since touching down, and nobody would be leaving unscathed. Barton was nursing a broken ankle, and at least three fractured ribs, Romanoff faring little better with a gash deep in her forehead, and lingering sickness from a botched tear gas bombing. Grant’s head was ringing with post concussive trauma, a jagged knife wound biting into his left thigh, and a half treated bullet wound in the tissue between his clavicle and shoulder.

They’d been deployed to neutralize a paramilitary incursion, nothing they hadn’t covered before, though the Eastern Bloc was slowly isolating itself again, and tensions were rising. Romanoff took point, being marginally better off than her partner, and former protegé, Barton barely able to move, and Grant struggling to keep pace, feeling blood stream down his leg.

"Shower? I’m not sure even a high pressure hose would do for me, Nat." Barton croaked, a sly smile on his pain bleached face. Grant rolled his eyes, recalling that his proper team were currently grounded for bus repairs, and physicals.

"I’d take a leaky faucet at this point." He offered, catching up to the older man and offering his good shoulder for support. The thought of being anything approaching clean was one of two things keeping him moving forward, the other being a pair of worried brown eyes staring down the cargo bay as he left, a slender hand half raised in a wave.

"Sure you would, Pretty Boy. You’ve got somewhere to be, don’t you? A bed to call your own, all that good stuff-" Romanoff’s light hearted ribbing was cut off, an ear splitting roar, blazing heat, and the noxious pall of burning engine fuel stealing the words away.

The screech of tires had the three of them on alert once they re-oriented. Barton was back up on his feet first, nocking an arrow and scanning their smoke blackened surroundings for enemy forces.

"Ward, 70 degrees right. Truck bed. Nat, on your six. Pursue on foot, two bombers, one injured. Rendezvous point in 15. " he called out, loosing an arrow high into the air, the thump of a body hitting the pavement from a nearby rooftop bringing Grant completely back to himself. Romanoff immediately flew after the two insurgents, a running jump up onto a series of parked cars giving her a slight advantage.

Ignoring the searing pain in his leg, Grant took off running, slid behind a blown out car, and was almost immediately set upon by a singed, bleeding, and very well armed opponent.

"Dammit…" he groaned, dodging to avoid the blade hissing down at him. A swift knee in the sternum nearly had him on the ground, and a foot connected with his jaw followed by a sickening crunch. Fighting down the currently blinding pain, Grant disabled the man, the knife intent on killing him now plunged deep in the stranger’s ribcage. Deftly twisting up, Grant knew the heart had successfully been stopped, blood soaking his right hand and nearly unbalancing the fresh corpse in his arms.

Letting the body fall, he searched around for signs of Barton, the shouts, and hammering of yet more gunfire alerting him to his other supervisor’s position. Sure enough, by the time Grant got to him, every man on the other end was either dead or incapacitated.

"Alright kid, we need to split. Best not to keep Her Majesty waiting." Barton wheezed, leaning heavily against a disintegrating brick wall for a moment, blood trickling in crimson rivulets down his chin.

"Right." Grant said, sparking the exposed wires of an ancient Jeep and waiting on his companion to get settled. He hastily wiped down his hands before attempting to drive, but the man in the passenger’s seat wasn’t called Hawkeye for nothing.

"You gonna need to make a phone call once we debrief?" he asked, tightly clutching the filthy dashboard, concern wreathing his face.

"No, clean kill. Necessary." Grant mumbled, swerving to avoid a construct of burning palettes. It wasn’t something he shied away from, it was part of the job. The day it got easier was the day he’d quit, but having a team to watch out for had given him some new perspective on why he was necessary. May was the last resort, Skye had too much heart to try it, and Coulson rarely saw hostile action. Fitz rarely gave him lethal tech, knowing that any live rounds would already be on hand. Simmons, he didn’t know quite yet if he’d be able to look at her. 

Jemma Simmons was a variable he couldn’t quantify, an angle he didn’t account for. The first person after Nat and Clint to see someone worth reaching out to, and when she reached out, she had stolen his heart. She’d seen the x-rays, the scars, and the post-combat exhaustion, never once faulting him for staying silent.

They all knew what he was really there for, the only permanent solution. He hadn’t been that useful yet, and imagining Jemma’s face when she realized how far he’d go to do his job, to keep them safe, it terrified him. All sunshine, and sweetness, she saw the aftermath of other hands but faced it all down with clinical professionalism. He’d woken up from dreams where she had bodies he’d created on her table; surveying his work, the steadiness, the lack of hesitation, and hating him for it.

"Then i’m making it for you. You aren’t with Trip, and Bo, or on your own anymore, you can’t afford not to talk to someone." Clint said, sounding about as displeased as Grant felt. His new position had really split up a hell of a team, Clint and Nat both having very pointed words with Fury on behalf of their charges.

"Then you can kindly fuck off. I said it was clean.” Grant hissed, the brakes choking and skidding as they reached their rendezvous point, Natasha already debriefing some of the local agents. Clean, the word the specialists used when they’d taken a life in the field; in defense of their own, or someone else’s. The reek of copper, burning flesh, and sewage didn’t make Grant feel like it was clean at all. None of them ever did.

"Sure. Call me when you start seeing shit again, and can’t look your squad in the eye. It’s not supposed to be okay."

"Never said it was. Get inside, i’m going to pull rank on the pilots and tell them to hurry the hell up." Grant growled, catching Romanoff’s eye, and feeling her fall into step beside him.

"They’re going to keep a detachment of marines in the area, and deploy a few ex-black ops Academy grads. They liked having us do their dirty work. трус. *Cowards*” The exhausted red head spat, weaving a little on her feet. She carried too much guilt, and other people ordering her out here to change a tide had left her incensed.

“Их лучше чем мы. *Better them than us.*” Grant replied, slipping easily into the conversational Russian they used around lower ranked operatives. It was hell on his dried out throat, but the grin he was rewarded with before Natasha headed to the cockpit eased the itch. Russian was his least favorite, but she’d made he, Trip, and Bobbi learn for the sake of group cohesion.

He let himself be tended to by a far too unfamiliar medic, and strapped himself in to a hideously uncomfortable seat for the long haul back stateside. If the terrified screams of maimed, dying, and innocent civilians ringing in his head caused any alarm as he slept, neither senior agent brought it up. They had demons all their own, far larger and more frightening than his.

Touching down at Quantico, and saying his goodbyes, Grant limped out to meet May, the Short Bus idling on the runway.

"Barton filled me in. Do I need to worry?" May asked, surveying his still filthy, shaking form.

"Clean, and no. Barton’s full of shit. Nothing to worry about." Grant said, making a mental note to place an angry phone call later. He wasn’t 22 anymore, and while it didn’t get easier, it started to only pierce scar tissue.

"Good. Simmons is on standby with a sedative cocktail, and your Dublin work ups just in case." May said, her tone steady, if there was one person he couldn’t hide his feelings from, it was her.

"Did she ask why she had to pull them?"

"No, but she did ask after you left if she had clearance to know about the nature of your deployment. Hell of a doctor, even if it isn’t what she signed on to be." May murmured, taking a backroad exit out into what looked like old farmland and stopping the car.

"She didn’t need to take this on." Grant sighed, running a hand through his hair, and retracting his fingers to find clotting blood.

"She saw you put a dent in solid steel, other than me, who do you think is qualified to help? Don’t push her away. not when she’s making the effort. Remind me to pull up the personal statistics for people like us sometime…" and with that, May pulled the car into the Bus’ open cargo bay, and leaving him to sit.

People like us, he mused. People too broken, naive, scarred, or vicious to take a Comm position. That’s the man he was as he departed the car, Skye, Fitz, and Coulson coming from the lab to greet him. Between Skye commenting on how he looked like ten miles of bad road, Coulson scolding her, and Fitz clamping a mobile BPM it his wrist, Grant barely glimpsed Jemma putting on a sterile pair of blue gloves and tying back her hair but for the first time in days, he could breathe again. 

"Okay, yes, i’m back. Fitz, get this thing off of me, Skye, keep talking and tomorrow will be leg day." He grumbled, easing himself into the version of him they knew, Coulson acknowledging the soldier he had hidden away as he departed.

"Yep, definitely him. Pissy attitude and all. Hey Simmons, Patient Zero is back! He smells like a mass grave, that’s gotta be like Christmas for you!" Skye called, taking what little weight Grant was willing to lean on her and helping him into the lab.

"Like Christmas…" Jemma agreed, meeting Grant’s eyes, smiling gently as she echoed his words from their first meeting. "Now either clear out or give me space, honestly Ward. Do you like giving me this much to do?" 

"Gotta keep you away from UpWords somehow." He joked, his head still swimming from the concussive blast from a pipe bomb sending him careening into a wall.

"Of course. Fitz, Skye, unless you want to help extract shrapnel, i’m going to ask you leave. He’s bad and I need to concentrate." Jemma intoned, her sterilized suturing kid clinking as she set it on a table. Skye flashed a skeptical look at the two of them, and pulled Fitz out to go watch a movie.

Once they were gone, Jemma rested a cool, gentle hand on top of his. 

"How bad?" she asked, letting it be a catch all for the physical, and emotional toll of his trip.

"Nothing I can’t take. You didn’t need to lie. I got cleaned out before we took off."

"Not by me. You definitely have a concussion, what looks to be yet another set of entry and exit wounds, and what in the name of God did that to your leg?" Jemma hissed, scissors delicately cutting away at the ruined fabric of his pants. Her eyes widening with shock, and sympathy, it set Grant’s stomach turning. He might just be tired enough, finally brought to his knees for enough time to let her in.

"A chain link fence, and something i’m going to call a sword because it was too big to be a knife." he joked, looking down to watch her clean up the worst of the ruined flesh, and begin sewing it back together.

"Of course. Anything else I need to know? Any beautiful eastern bloc spies manage to get in your currently addled head? STDs are always a risk." Jemma said, forcing herself to adopt a lighter tone. Teasing came easily with them, easier than putting words to why he always stood by her, and why she put herself between him and loneliness.

"None this time, Barton and Romanoff would have skinned me for getting distracted." 

"Then they definitely haven’t been keeping abreast of the official debriefings. How many women have you had to chat up since all this started?"

"I want to say three, and one guy. I don’t know if he counts because I knocked him out." Grant said, muscles tensing as Jemma helped him out of his vest, and shirt to get at his shoulder.

"Dead charming, you are." Jemma muttered, eyes fixed on the small scope she had at hand to determine if there was any debris in the wound."

"Got you here alone, didn’t I?" he said, a smile barely formed on his lips as he watched her face.

"I suppose so. How long are you going to insist that you’re fine?" she inquired, hands steady as she set to work mending his shoulder.

"Until it kills me." Grant answered, and it was true. He had no business asking anyone else to hold him up.

"I’ll never let that happen…" Jemma whispered, half to herself, half to the air. She had stripped off her gloves, and disposed of them, her tools now bathing in antiseptic.

"Think you can catch me, Simmons?" Grant asked, dazed, sore, and completely taken in by the woman with his blood staining her lab coat.

"I know I can." She insisted, shedding her jacket, and brushing her fingers across the unbruised skin along his cheek. "Go rest up. It’s good to have you back. I’ve got a kit in my room if you need a quick fix, you just need to knock."

That’s just what he did, sleep escaping him, and bile burning his throat. He knocked on Jemma’s door, holding himself together with only a few threads.

"Ward, you look terrible. Have you ripped something?" Jemma asked, swaddled in a blue terrycloth robe, and a lilac pajama set. She stepped aside, caretaker mode over-riding exhausted neighbor.

"No, but i’m not alright either." he admitted, dropping onto a chair she stored in what little space their bunks afforded.

"I don’t know what I can do to help, but i’m glad you came to me." Jemma said, worry etched in every line of her petite form. She sat down on the edge of her bed, fingers lightly brushing his kneecap in yet another show of tenderness.

"I’m sorry, I just can’t keep my head clear, and I didn’t want to bother May about it. " Grant choked, memories of the bodies he’d stepped over, and made intermingling with the rush of water swirling around him as he fought to save his brother.

"It’s not a bother. Just talk to me. Grant, i’m here. Whatever you need." Jemma said, standing up to lean against her desk and slip an arm around his shoulder, an act he wouldn’t have allowed anyone else to commit.

He slumped forward, the palms of his hands digging into his eyes, willing them to clear. He heard the rustle of fabric as she perched on the arm of the chair, a hand rubbing soothing circles along the flat of his back.

"I did what i’m paid to do, what i’m good for. Another completed mission, another clean kill. I’m one of the best for a reason." Grant spat, bitterness in every letter. "Just a trigger finger."

"Oh. Oh no." Jemma whispered, gently guiding back up into a sitting position and taking his bloodless face in her hands. The concern in her eyes almost persuading Grant to lay his head in her lap and pray for absolution.

"You’re more than that, you are. I don’t know what you’re fighting, but you’re so much more than what you’re telling yourself."

"Am I? May is a wreck, Skye is terrified to pull a trigger, Coulson won’t get his hands dirty. This is what i’m for. I needed to run, and this is what I ran to. This is who you waved goodbye to." he said, voice shaking, and leaning into her touch, barely caring that he was so far beyond indecent, nothing of the stoic barrier, or brooding sentry left.

"This is who I chose to let in too. No more, not now." Jemma said, pulling him out of the chair and sitting him on her bed, putting a pillow between him and the wall. A pain worse than any flesh wound flared up in his chest as she curled up against him, leaving would be the best possible idea, but at this point it might kill him.

"I should probably thank you for that." he said, twisting to pull her against his chest, situating her on his good leg, arms twining around her waist. She didn’t fight him on it, and when he leaned in to kiss her, she met him half way. All of his gratitude, all of his longing couldn’t be poured out in a single kiss, so when she grabbed hold of him, he didn’t stop.

The screams faded, the water receded, and it only left him with Jemma. Just Jemma, lips leaving a scorching trail down his neck, hands and fingers memorizing every plane of muscle, scar tissue, and skin she found. Jemma who pulled him down to lean his weight on top of her, letting him press his face into her hair, and just breathe. The woman he saved, after she tried saving him. The one who didn’t shy away from the darkness ripped out of him for all to see.

She seemed to be as utterly distracted by him as he was with her, soft moans escaping her lips as he held onto her, teeth grazing the pale exposed skin of her shoulder. There was no other sound like it, and if he could hear it every day for all of eternity, he’d do anything she asked. This was him at his weakest, and how she welcomed him was the only closest he’d ever come to a miracle. 

She didn’t mind the blood, she kissed the bruises, and bit down hard on his shoulder when he needed her to ground him. Brown eyes taking in every inch of the violent, shadow dwelling wreck beside her, and silently promising to love all of him. To Grant, every moment he held on to her, every breath in his ear, and every cry of desire and release was another memory he could keep for when he needed them. 

Jemma, terrified to watch him go, showed him how to come back, and what he’d be coming back to. Half asleep, sheets tangled along sweat slicked skin, and heart pounding, Jemma had become the reason for him to come back, even if the job killed him, he’d never let her be alone. Not when he had all but begged her to call him hers, and she’d shown him how to own a heart, and a body. She wouldn’t have it any other way, and she left soft, almost ghost-like kisses along his chest, dizzy with the same love that kept him beside her.

"You’re welcome. " she said, and finally, they both could rest. Death wasn’t as frightening when they decided to defy it together.


End file.
